


Leave it to a Lupin

by azkadamn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boggarts, F/M, Hope Lupin - Freeform, How They Met, Lupin Family, Lyall Lupin - Freeform, Pre-Hogwarts, Pre-Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Remus parents, lyall lupin/hope lupin - Freeform, remus lupin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:33:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29252277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azkadamn/pseuds/azkadamn
Summary: Spring of 1956. Lyall Lupin, a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Apparitions, is on a mission to banish a particularly vicious Boggart lurking in a dense Welsh forest. Hope Howell, a beautiful muggle woman, takes an ill-advised walk through that same forest. Hope gets into a dangerous situation and Lyall, hearing her screams, rushes to save her. The rest is history.Have you ever imagined the first encounter between Lyall and Hope? This is how Remus Lupin's parents met. A sweet, short story inspired by the little canonic information we have.
Relationships: Hope Lupin/Lyall Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Leave it to a Lupin

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The characters and the wizarding world of Harry Potter were created and belong to J. K. Rowling, not to me.
> 
> \- PLEASE, READ THE WRITER'S NOTES AT THE END OF THIS FIC -

### Spring of 1956

### 

The muscles of his legs seemed to start burning instantly under the sudden strain they were being subjected to. He wasn’t really the sporty type, and it was an unexpected occurrence anyway: he heard the screams and immediately jumped into action without any kind of preparation. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting anyone to be wandering in a foggy forest in that chilly weather, and he was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the noises. 

_Typical. Leave it to a Lupin to day-dream during a mission._

It wasn’t a dangerous task, but it was still work, and he should really stop mooning all the time, that’s what his colleagues kept telling him. 

_I always get the job done, though. Unlike those know-it-alls!_

He stopped for a moment, leaning slightly against the uneven bark of a birch tree to catch his breath. 

_Great, I’m doing it again._

Steadying himself, he shook his head to regain his concentration. While he sprinted through the trees, carefully avoiding the roots and other obstacles on the forest ground, the screams got louder, and then he stepped into the scene. 

Approximately in the middle of the forest, there was a small clearing surrounded by an irregular circle of old trees; in that spot stood a large, evil-looking man snarling at a terrified woman who was laying curled up on the ground. The man was making his way towards her slowly, but menacingly. The woman, seemingly paralysed with fear, only managed to scream and shield herself with her arms. Judging by the man’s unnatural looks and forced, jerky movements, Lupin had found his target. 

At this point in his life, Lupin was considered a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spirituous Apparitions. Holding in high regard his devotion to studying and his vast experience in the field, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had decided to seek his help for an especially tedious case of a particularly vicious Boggart which was supposed to be lurking in this dense Welsh forest. Months of searching led to nothing, but it took Lupin only two days to find it. Then lose it for another four days, sure. But hey, now there it was again.

As he watched the Boggart’s unconvincing impression of a human, he couldn’t help a satisfied smirk; _another solved case!_

“Riddikulus!” he shouted, aiming his wand at the creature with resolution. The creature glared at him and definitely tried to resist his spell for a few moments, but eventually began to shrink more and more, losing its human appearance and finally re-shaping itself into a small, harmless field mushroom. He moved closer to the mushroom to inspect it and sighed with relief, already thinking about what to eat, since it was almost lunchtime and he could feel his stomach growl. 

_I’ll celebrate with mushrooms risotto_ he decided. _I wonder if Boggart flavoured mushrooms are edible_ he joked with himself. But his plans were soon forgotten when he heard muffled sobs coming from behind him. 

_The woman, how could I have forgotten?!_  
He quickly turned to her, pondering on what to do. 

“It’s all right, it was only a Boggart” he tried, getting closer.

His words had no effect: the woman remained on the ground, her long, bright, chestnut hair falling over her face, which was mostly hidden between the folds of her wide flowery dress. He waited a few moments, then put his wand away inside the inner pocket of his purple muggle coat and resolved to sit on the ground beside her, leaving a comfortable amount of space between them.

“It’s all right, the Boggart is gone.” he repeated. This time, the woman raised her head to look at him with wide, watery eyes. 

As they made eye contact for the first time, the man held his breath and felt his heart beating a little faster. Her eyes were a beautiful hazel colour, with green and brown shades combining into something that closely resembled a variety of jasper stones he had collected during one of his most recent missions in a rainforest. Her face was a bit red and puffy, probably a consequence of the previous events. Still, he could tell that her skin was usually pale and likely very smooth, the tone mingling nicely with the teal coloured dress she was wearing. Her small upturned nose was adorned by a few light brown freckles that went all the way down to the line of her pink, heart-shaped upper lip. He was thirty-three, and she seemed to be around his own age, maybe a few years younger. 

Lupin only had a few seconds to register all of these things, because as soon as she realized that someone was sitting next to her, she gasped and rushed to her feet with an abrupt movement. Or at least, that’s what she tried to do, but the attempt failed miserably, and she fell back to the ground with a whimper, holding her right ankle. He stretched out his arms as if to catch her, but it was too late.

“Wait- oh! Are you hurt?” he asked, with concern in his voice. His eyes looked down at her bruised ankle, where a trickle of blood had come out at some point. She took a deep breath, then dried her eyes with the back of her hands and looked at him again, warily. 

“Y-yeah. I- I think I twisted my ankle.” she paused, “I was trying to run away from that t-terrible man, but I t-tripped over a root.” her gentle voice was shaking.

“Oh.” he managed to say, “Do… Do you mind if I take a look at it? Maybe I can fix it.” 

“You are... a doctor?” she stared at him with a puzzled expression, taking in his odd appearance; a purple women’s coat, brown leather sandals with white socks. If he actually was a doctor, he certainly didn’t look like the ones she was used to seeing.

Even so, she was fairly sure that a handsome man was hiding under those unusual clothes. Every trait of the man reminded her of the earth; he was sitting, but she could still tell that he was tall and slim like the ancient trees that stood around them. His soft, rosy face framed by some loose curls, which were blonde like the sun-kissed sand in the summer, and his chocolaty brown eyes felt warm and kind as they observed her carefully. 

She quickly looked away, embarrassment filling her as she realised that she had been staring for a while. But then again, the stranger next to her was doing the same and that only seemed to worsen her predicament, in fact she could feel her cheeks burning as she blushed profusely. 

_Dear Lord,_ she thought, doing her best to avoid his gaze, _I don’t even want to imagine how pathetic I look right now._  
She was completely unaware of the battle that was taking place inside the man’s mind. 

_A doctor?_ He kept repeating the word to himself, taking a ridiculous amount of time before realising that the woman was probably a muggle. _Ah! That’s how the muggles call their healers. But what is a muggle doing all alone in this cold forest? Don’t they know that forests are dangerous places full of dark creatures?_ He thought stupidly. Finally, he answered her question.

“Oh no, no!” he said in a high-pitched tone, shaking his head for emphasis. He took too long to answer and made it weird, awesome. “I’m not- uh, one of those. I just wanted to help you, somehow.” he added, laughing nervously to get rid of the tension currently building in his shoulders. He could only hope that his nervousness wasn’t too visible from the outside.

A long moment of silence passed before either of them spoke again.

“It’s okay, I’ll see a doctor. I just need to get home first.”  
And with that she tried to push herself off the ground once again, shifting her weight on her own thin arms. He stood up with ease, instinctively holding out a hand which she accepted gratefully after a brief moment of hesitation. As they stood now facing each other, they exchanged a curious look. As awkward as it was, the woman had no choice but to lean heavily on the man’s arm for support; she really didn’t fancy another ruinous fall. Her day was already turning out to be tough enough as it was, thank you very much.

“Thank you.” she said with a cough, looking away from his eyes.  
“For everything, I mean.” she added, her lips closing tightly as a wave of pain passed through her body.  
“I wouldn’t have known what to do.” She shivered slightly as a sudden gust of wind hit her, maybe the cardigan she was wearing wasn’t warm enough.

He lowered his gaze and smiled politely, keeping his arm firmly in place.

“It’s nothing. I’m just glad I was around to help you.”  
He bit his tongue to stop himself from saying anything else.

He really was glad, but technically she was never in any real danger. It didn’t count as _lying_ , he was only leaving out a small, insignificant detail. She didn’t need to know that. Better yet, she _must not_ know about _any_ of that. He couldn’t go around violating the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy just to be honest to clueless muggle women. He hated lying, but that law was there for a good reason: safety. The Secrecy protected both magical and non-magical people. It was a necessity.

“No, seriously!” she insisted, unconsciously tightening her grip on his arm “I wouldn’t have got out of that situation alone.”  
She shivered again, this time for a different reason; images of the recent event were still fresh in her mind. Now that she thought about it, she was so scared that she couldn’t even focus on what exactly happened when this strange man arrived. 

“How did you even manage to chase him off?” she asked perplexed, “What happened?” her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she tried to picture all the possible scenarios.

The man in front of her stiffened and held his breath for a second, then sighed.

“I’m sorry, it must’ve been a frightening experience for you.” he gave her a short, meaningful look, “that man was pretty big, but it wasn’t hard for me to scare him away.” he finished, not giving her a real answer. He smiled at her, straightening his posture and raising his chin subtly, in hopes of looking brave and convincing. But his confident pose quickly faltered when she started giggling; it wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.

“Ah, Sorry!” she tried to contain her laughter, gracefully covering her mouth with a hand, “Oh no, I’m awful! Sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I promise.”

Okay, maybe she was laughing at him, just a teeny tiny bit. No, she wasn’t laughing at him precisely, she was laughing at the circumstances. She just could not imagine a person with such a… bizarre sense of fashion, to intimidate a brute, muscular criminal like that one. And the posture he had just adopted! It was making the situation even less believable. Another chuckle escaped her.  
_Oh my, I’m being so unfair!_ She thought, mentally slapping her own forehead.

“Sorry. I swear, I’m very grateful for your help.” she gave him a kind smile and squeezed his arm lightly. She really hoped that he believed her, because she actually meant that, it was the truth. “Sometimes I get distracted and wander around in my own mind, I was thinking about something else.” and while it wasn’t exactly the whole truth in this case, she really did that a lot in general.  
_It could be considered a partial truth_ , she thought.

Different things passed through the man’s eyes: first confusion, then self-consciousness and finally something that couldn’t be easily identified. Not at the time. A pleasant mix of excitement, anxiousness and warmth that made his soul squirm in anticipation.  
He looked at her and a grin spread across his face, until it turned into full-on laughter. Now it was her time to stare at him in confusion, and possibly with a hint of concern as well.

“Dear Merlin” he exclaimed, wiping away a jovial tear “and I thought _I_ was moony!”

The woman’s mouth fell open, a funny expression on her face.  
“Dear… Merlin?” she whispered, amused. 

His laughter died instantly as he stared at her, now with nervousness. _Fuck, not very muggle of me, was it?_

But all of a sudden she burst out laughing again, leaning forward and holding her stomach with her free arm, almost causing them to fall over. Relieved, he joined her laughing so hard that he was struggling to hold them up. They spent a few minutes in this state of mirth, enjoying the moment and feeling inexplicably comfortable in each other's company even though they had only just met.

“Come on, let’s go” he said after a while, a relaxed smile still on his face, “hold on to me.”

“Let’s go? Go where exactly?” she raised her eyebrows, bemused.

“I’m walking you home.” he shrugged obviously. He made it sound as if it was a habit they had, something they had already done a hundred times.

“But-” she paused at loss for words, “I don’t even know your name!”  
She added, pretending to be outraged. True, maybe trusting a stranger so quickly wasn’t very wise, and she had never done it before. Normally, she didn’t trust people this easily. But this man had saved her, and now he was offering to help her again. And he really, really seemed like the kind of person you could trust with your life. She decided to throw caution to hell for once.

“Lyall” he told her simply, “Lyall Lupin.” he finished, looking at her expectantly.

“I’m Hope Howell.” she told him with a friendly smile.

“Nice.” he started, and with a smirk already appearing on his face, he even dared to add, “ _Ho-well! Hopefully_ we can go now.” 

Silence fell between them for the umpteenth time that day, as Hope realised what Lyall had just said. _A pun with my name. Seriously?_

“Dear Merlin, Lyall.” she shook her head with resignation but clung to his arm regardless, pointing towards a rocky path, “That way.”

It was going to be a long walk.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi people! :) I really hope you liked this. I read many ffs and I like to spend my time creating headcanons and scenarios with HP characters in my mind. I've always wanted to write about Remus' family and this is the first of a series of works I will publish. In the next work I will publish, you'll read about the Marauders' lives before Hogwarts. I intend to write a long chapter for each Marauder, and they will be very intense chapters so buckle up and stay tuned. ;)  
> I would really appreciate reading what you think about it, an honest opinion. Please, take in mind a few facts first:  
> \- English is not my native language and my language has a different writing style;  
> \- This is the first fanfiction I've ever written;  
> \- This is the first thing I've written after a 5 years long writer's block;  
> \- I usually write poetry, which is a pretty different style;  
> \- I struggle with cognitive issues, which means that sometimes the things I write/say make no sense and my memory sucks, sorry.  
> THANK YOU so much for reading my ff and these notes, have a nice day!  
> P.S. Special thanks to Pear, Ropo, Babe and my brother for their support, their motivational speeches and their help (with revisions, corrections, posting etc.). I love you all so much and I feel very lucky to have you in my life. :)


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